Lesbian Fiction Without a Happy Ending

Les Do Books

Tara’s sidekick and fellow reviewer, Brooklyn Goodrich, is back! In this episode, Brooklyn joins Tara to share a selection of excellent lesbian fiction books that don’t have a happy ending. Listen to find out why Brooklyn thinks a happy ending is the last thing she needs from an excellent story.

Curves Welcome – How to Tap into Courage

Novelist and Motivational Blogger Suzie Carr asks the following in this episode: When was the last time you did something you were afraid of? Stood up to it and said no more. Decided you were no longer willing to sacrifice your joy and your experience in this great opportunity of life just to have a backseat in the comfort zone?

A Note to Listeners:

Is there a topic you’d like to hear me cover? Please email me to let me know. I have a special treat for you if you do. Please mention Podcast Idea in your subject line.

In this episode of Badass Women Save Themselves, Blythe and Jove discuss Atomic Blonde, specifically the things that surprised them, the things that they liked, and the things the could have done without.

Charlize Theron is a badass. She saves herself and a lot of other people. And she does it all to awesome 80s music. We have lots of opinions on Atomic Blonde, and not all of them are good, but we definitely come down on the side that it's worth watching.

About Jove And Blythe

Both are published authors and all round badass women in their own right. Jove is also on the Women And Words podcast where she and Andi do a roundup of the week’s happenings on their website.

How To Propose To A Woman

Les Talk About It

In this episode of Les Talk About it Sheena and Tamara are discussing the right way to propose to a woman.

MORE INFO

Sheena is the founder of The Lesbian Talk Show podcast channel and The Lesbian Review. Tamara is super smart and loves researching and together this married couple is known to get slightly off topic and laugh a lot.

Andi and Jove talk about queer history because Andi is all about bridging queer generational divides. And how about NaNoWriMo and the Dirt Road Books challenge (THANK YOU AUTHOR CATHERINE LANE FOR THE AWESOME VIDEO YOU MADE FOR US FOR THAT) because it’s fun and a great bonding experience AND Dirt Road Books will review your manuscript (remember, NaNoWriMo needs 50K words). Also, Jove has a lot of fictional characters she’s crushed out on over the years…

28 Oct.: Women and Wordster Erin Saluta talked about “books that require a conscientious effort to pick up because I know there is going to be a plot twist in it that I absolutely hate.” Go see!

Jove and author Blythe Rippon will be at the Read With Pride Northwest event Nov. 4th in Seattle! Also, you guys, if you’re an author and/or you know authors who want to give books away this December, get some exposure, and engage in the nutty Women and Words party known as THE HOOTENANNY, NOVEMBER 15 is the last day to get your titles in. Sign up HERE.

And if you’re interested, Andi did a podcast on her lived queer history with the LezBeHonest podcast HERE.

Sheena's List

Elite operative Domino is no stranger to peril and impossible situations. Trained all her life to be just as comfortable fighting terrorists as mixing with the gala crowd, she is proficient at playing any role necessary to accomplish her objective and believes the cause sanctifies the means.

But her latest assignment to investigate journalist Hayley Ward will test more than her skills, ingenuity, and courage, because this time she faces the ultimate dilemma: a choice between loyalty and love.

2 Five Moons Rising by Lise MacTague

Published by Bella Books

Unknown to regular citizens, nightmarish creatures lurk in the dark underbelly of human civilization. The presence of these supranormals (“supras”)—werewolves, vampires, demons—is a closely guarded government secret, as is the existence of a cadre of specially engineered Hunters charged with exterminating them.

Code-named Malice, Hunter Mary Alice Nolan was genetically modified and rigorously trained to use her great strength, heightened senses, and killer instincts to track and eliminate supras who prey on the innocent. A loner by choice, her only real link to the human world is her close connection to her mother and sister—until the unthinkable happens…

Ruri Samson has been a werewolf for more than a century and is comfortably situated as the Beta of her peaceful pack. Until she is betrayed by the woman she loves and an evil outsider massacres her Alpha and his most loyal followers. Barely escaping with her life, Ruri is forced to tread the perilous path of a lone wolf while vowing vengeance against the usurper and his minions.

Although these two powerful women should rightfully despise each other, fate will soon compel them to join forces on a dangerous quest to avenge their loved ones—and will ignite a forbidden passion that neither of them ever imagined.

3 The Sublime And Spirited Voyages Of Original Sin by Colette Moody

Published by Bold Strokes Books

The Gulf of Mexico, 1702: When pirates of the square-rigger Original Sin steal ashore to abduct a doctor to tend to their wounded, they end up settling for the doctor’s attractive fiancée—Celia Pierce, the town seamstress.

Together with Gayle Malvern, daughter of wounded pirate captain “Madman” Malvern, Celia becomes a reluctant participant in an unexpectedly thrilling journey through the Caribbean. For Gayle, Celia’s presence is at first a welcome and shapely distraction, but as her attraction to the seamstress deepens, she realizes that Celia comes to mean more to her than is almost certainly prudent. As Celia and Gayle navigate the perilous territories of gypsies, prostitutes, mercenaries, and slave-traders, they forge a partnership born of necessity that Gayle soon hopes will veer away from insurmountable danger—and instead detour directly to her bed.

4 Devil’s Rock by Gerri Hill

Published by Bella Books

Two women vow to bring a killer to justice. Deputy Andrea Sullivan had hoped to leave the horrors of Los Angeles behind her, but the serial murders of college students in peaceful, picturesque Sedona are her nightmare case to solve. The complexities stretch local resources to the limit, and the FBI joins the case with Agent Cameron Ross in the lead.

The crime scenes are covered with the trademark signs of the fiendish Patrick Doe, whose handiwork has been investigated by Dallas detective Tori Hunter and others. But where Hunter failed Cameron intends to win. She will break the case, find justice and go home. No distractions. Unfortunately, Deputy Sullivan is very distracting. And Patrick Doe has other plans.

Anna’s Picks

6 Kicker's Journey by Lois Cloarec Hart

Published by Ylva Publishing

In 1899 two women from very different backgrounds are about to embark on a journey together - one that will take them from the Old World to the New, from the 19th century into the 20th, and from the comfort and familiarity of England to the rigours of Western Canada, where challenges await at every turn.

The journey begins simply for Kicker Stuart when she leaves her home village to take employment as hostler and farrier at Grindleshire Academy for Young Ladies. But when Kicker falls in love with a teacher, Madelyn Bristow, it radically alters the course of her tranquil life.

Together, the lovers flee the brutality of Madelyn's father and the prejudices of upper-crust England in search of freedom to live, and love, as they choose. A journey as much of the heart and soul as of the body, it will find the lovers struggling against the expectations of gender, the oppression of class, and even, at times, each other.

What they find at the end of their journey is not a new Eden, but a land of hope and opportunity that offers them the chance to live out their most cherished dream - a life together.

7 The Killing Ground by Syd Parker

Published by Syd Parker Books

A serial killer is working his way through Chicago. His victims have nothing in common except being pregnant. Detective Rebecca Foxx of the Chicago Detective Division has her hands full trying to catch the murderer before he kills again. She has enough pressure without the overbearing FBI butting in.

FBI Special Agent Jordan Gray isn’t sure what she is in for when a midnight call brings her to her boss’s office. She asks her to take an assignment off the records. Investigate the attack of her partner, but don’t let anyone outside her office know.

It soon becomes obvious that Rebecca resents the FBI’s intrusion and it seems Jordan’s personal attention. With no breaks in the case, she is forced to accept the FBI’s help, but she’ll be damned if she is taking anything else from Jordan.

What follows is a series of missteps and twists and turns that leaves both women wondering if they will ever catch the killer and trying to figure out how to keep their feelings for each other from becoming a distraction.

8 True Nature by Jae

Published by Ylva Publishing

When wolf-shifter Kelsey Yates discovers that fourteen-year-old shape-shifter Danny Harding is living with a human adoptive mother, she is sent on a secret mission to protect the pup and get him away from the human.

Successful CEO Rue Harding has no idea that the private teacher she hires for her deaf son isn’t really there to teach him history and algebra—or that Danny and Kelsey are not what they seem to be.

But when Danny runs away from home and gets lost in New York City, Kelsey and Rue have to work together to find him before his first transformation sets in and reveals the shape-shifter’s secret existence to the world.

9 Don't Call Me Hero by Eliza Lentzski

It’s been over a year since Cassidy Miller retired from the United States Marine Corps, but try telling that to her nightmares. She knew that coming back after eight years in a war zone wouldn’t be easy, but she’d underestimated the real difficulties of transitioning back to civilian life. War is hell, but the aftermath is endless. Looking for a fresh start, she’s left her friends and career in Minneapolis to be a police officer in northern Minnesota. It’s in the tiny town of Embarrass where she learns more about Julia Desjardin. The city prosecutor is cool, professional, and untouchable. But she and Cassidy have history, and Cassidy isn’t going to let her easily forget that. For all their surface differences, Cassidy and Julia have more in common than they first realized—both are reluctant to hand over their pasts to be judged and studied. But it might take someone just as damaged as the other to help each cope with the skeletons in their respective closets.

10 Bridesmaid of Honor by Graysen Morgen

Published by Triplicity Publishing

Britton Prescott's best friend is getting married and she's the maid of honor. What her best friend failed to mention, was the fact that her cousin Daphne was going to be a bridesmaid. The same cousin that has been Britton's nemesis since they were in high school.

As if that isn't enough to deal with, Britton's sister announces she's getting married in the same month and her maid of honor is none other than her best friend Daphne, the same woman that has tormented her sister for years. Britton has to suck it up and play nice, instead of scratching her eyes out, because she and Daphne are in both weddings.

Everyone is counting on Britton and Daphne to behave like adults and put the past behind them. No one expects to find them wrapped in each other's arms at the most inopportune time.

Off Pitch by Brianna Kienitz

Book Clips

Synopsis

Soccer star Adeline Fahey has never taken an interest in the world outside of the pitch. The daughter of wealthy Irish immigrants, and a straight-A student, she sees nothing but the goal—finish her last two years of school and join a professional soccer team—no ifs, ands, or buts.

Then Gabriella Soto, a cello prodigy in her own right and the teaching assistant in Adeline’s dreaded Beginning Spanish class, walks onto her playing field.

After a drunken night in a T-rex costume boots their hearts onto a collision course, Adeline and Gabriella must tackle a field of school scandal, homophobic parents, and their own passionate career goals to have a shot at something more. In the face of so many obstacles, Adeline and Gabriella fear that their love may not be strong enough to score them the championship relationship they never knew they wanted.

The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley - Lez Geek Out 19

Andi and Lise totally lose their minds over Hurley’s latest, The Stars are Legion, in which warring worlds are populated only by women in decaying organic world-ships all known as The Legion. The main character, Zan, wakes up to find most of her memories gone, but soon finds out that she is being perpetually sent out to board another world-ship and each time, she comes closer.

Andi and Lise were blown away by Hurley’s world-building – organic world-ships literally birthed by the women who inhabit them, and each with different levels/ecosystems all interrelated (omg the metaphors here!). The story is thus about Zan, who knows that she needs to board this other ship to save Jayd. Jayd, for her part, has her own agenda in bringing change into this warring, authoritarian context. The question is, can they do it and what precisely does “change” mean?

Synopsis

Somewhere on the outer rim of the universe, a mass of decaying world-ships known as the Legion is traveling in the seams between the stars. For generations, a war for control of the Legion has been waged, with no clear resolution. As worlds continue to die, a desperate plan is put into motion.

Zan wakes with no memory, prisoner of a people who say they are her family. She is told she is their salvation - the only person capable of boarding the Mokshi, a world-ship with the power to leave the Legion. But Zan's new family is not the only one desperate to gain control of the prized ship. Zan finds that she must choose sides in a genocidal campaign that will take her from the edges of the Legion's gravity well to the very belly of the world.

Zan will soon learn that she carries the seeds of the Legion's destruction - and its possible salvation. But can she and her ragtag band of followers survive the horrors of the Legion and its people long enough to deliver it?

In the tradition of The Fall of Hyperion and Dune, The Stars Are Legion is an epic and thrilling tale about tragic love, revenge, and war as imagined by one of the genre's most celebrated new writers.